Donald Trump claims Marie Yovanovitch ‘didn’t want to hang my picture in the embassy’

Donald Trump on Friday launched a new attack on former U.S. Ambassador to the Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, calling her a Barack Obama person who refused to hang his picture in the embassy in Kiev.

‘This was an Obama person who didn’t want to hang my picture in the embassy. It’s standard is you put the President of the United States picture in the embassy. This was not an angel this woman,’ the president told the hosts of ‘Fox & Friends’ when he called into his favorite morning show for an interview. 

‘She’s an Obama person,’ he said. 

Donald Trump called former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch an ‘Obama person’

Donald Trump also complained she wouldn't hang his presidential photo in the U.S. Embassy

Donald Trump also complained she wouldn’t hang his presidential photo in the U.S. Embassy

But his biggest charge was that Yovanovitch, as ambassador, refused to hang his presidential photo in the U.S. embassy after his election. 

‘This ambassador, that, you know, everybody says is a wonderful, she wouldn’t have my picture in the embassy. Okay she’s in charge of the embassy. She wouldn’t hang it. It took like a year and a half or two years for her to get the picture up,’ he complained in his nearly one hour interview on Fox. 

However, The Washington Post reported in October of 2017 that the official portraits of President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were finally being sent to government office buildings – nine months after they were sworn into office. 

It was unclear what caused the delay. 

Trump also said he was told they had to be nice to Yovanovitch because she’s a woman. 

‘I said, “Why are you being so kind. Well sir she’s a woman. We have to be nice.” She’s very tough,’ he said.

Yovanovitch was appointed ambassador to the Ukraine by President Barack Obama in May 2016 and confirmed by the Senate that July. 

Trump had her recalled in May of this year and her defender say she was the victim of smear campaign against her.

The president and his supporters point out he can appoint anyone he wants as ambassador. 

Donald Trump's official presidential portrait that is supposed to hang in every government building

Donald Trump’s official presidential portrait that is supposed to hang in every government building

The U.S. Embassy in Kiev on July 5 for a Fourth of July party, Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in the Ukraine, speaks on the balcony

The U.S. Embassy in Kiev on July 5 for a Fourth of July party, Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in the Ukraine, speaks on the balcony 

President Trump called into 'Fox & Friends' on Friday morning

President Trump called into ‘Fox & Friends’ on Friday morning

Marie Yovanovitch, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, in her testimony last Friday talked about the president's attacks on her character

Marie Yovanovitch, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, in her testimony last Friday talked about the president’s attacks on her character

Yovanovitch testified in public during the impeachment hearings last Friday and received a standing ovation when she was done. 

In her testimony, Yovanovitch addressed the president’s previous attacks against her.

The long time diplomat recalled in stark, personal terms how she felt when she was attacked by Trump associates and later disparaged by the president himself in his July 25 phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky.

‘I was shocked and devastated that I would feature in a phone call between two heads of state in such a manner where President Trump said that I was bad news to another world leader and that I would be going through some things,’ Yovanovitch said during her public testimony in Trump’s impeachment inquiry.

‘It sounded like a threat,’ she noted.

As Democrats were questioning her about a smear campaign against her, President Trump took to Twitter to wage a fresh round of insults against the former ambassador – a move House Intelligence Committee Committee Chairman Adam Schiff called ‘witness intimidation.’

‘Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad,’ Trump wrote on the social media platform while Yovanovitch sat at the witness table on Capitol Hill. ‘It is a U.S. President’s absolute right to appoint ambassadors.’

Other State Department officials, in their testimony before the impeachment inquiry, described Yovanovitch’s professional demeanor and praised her years of public service. 

State Department official David Holmes testified on Thursday on what he said was his first-hand knowledge about the pressures placed on the Ukraine to open investigations – going all the way up to President Trump.

Holmes, in his 12-page opening statement, emphasized his non-political role in U.S. Embassy in Kiev and outlined how U.S. priorities in the Ukraine were overshadowed by Rudy Giuliani and the ‘three amigos’ running a ‘shadow’ foreign policy.

The career diplomat arrived in Kiev in August 2017 to work with Yovanovitch and then with Bill Taylor after Yovanovitch was recalled in May of this year.

The garden at the U.S. embassy in Kiev

The garden at the U.S. embassy in Kiev

David Holmes, a career diplomat and the political counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, described in his Thursday testimony an effort to discredit Yovanovitch

David Holmes, a career diplomat and the political counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, described in his Thursday testimony an effort to discredit Yovanovitch

Holmes talk about Rudy Giuliani's role in the effort to oust Ambassador Yovanovitch

Holmes talk about Rudy Giuliani’s role in the effort to oust Ambassador Yovanovitch 

He noted a change in U.S. policy began ‘dramatically’ in March 2019 when American policy directives in the country were ‘overshadowed by a political agenda being promoted by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and a cadre of officials operating with a direct channel to the White House.’

That agenda led to Yovanovitch’s ouster as ambassador, he testified. He outlined a campaign led by then-Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko to discredit her, a campaign Giuliani then took up to have Yovanovitch recalled.

That discreditation campaign involved the Bidens and Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company that had Hunter Biden on its board until earlier this year – a mixture President Trump would ultimately take up to rage against the Bidens in his campaign rallies.

Holmes argued Lutsenko was angry Yovanovitch had pushed him to follow through on reform commitments and retaliated against her because of it.

‘In retaliation, Mr. Lutsenko made a series of unsupported allegations against Ambassador Yovanovitch, mostly suggesting that Ambassador Yovanovitch improperly used the Embassy to advance the political interests of the Democratic Party,’ he said.

He explained how Lutsenko made unsubstantiated allegations that the U.S. Embassy had pressured Lutsenko’s predecessor to close a case against a different former Ukrainian official, solely because of an alleged connection between that official’s company, Burisma, and former Vice President Biden’s son’s Hunter Biden.

Giuliani took it up from there, according to Holmes.

‘Over the next few months, Mr. Giuliani also issued a series of tweets, asking ‘why Biden shouldn’t be investigated,’ attacking the ‘New Pres of Ukraine’ (Zelenskyy) for being ‘silent’ on the 2016 election and Biden investigations, and complaining about the New York Times attacking him for ‘exposing the Biden family history of making millions . . . from Ukraine criminals,’ Holmes testified.

 

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk